Monday, July 19, 2004

Trump the Shark II

As much as I want to loathe Donald Trump, there's a part of me that admires the stones he has. After squeezing his way back into the national spotlight thanks to Mark Burnett's enormously entertaining The Apprentice, Trump could have kicked back, fired up a stogie, and thanked whatever god he prays to that people were talking about The Return of The Donald and not The Impending Collapse of The Donald's Casino Empire.

Instead, Trump apparently recalled his near-ruin of the 1990s and decided to strike while the iron is hot. He's doing syndicated radio commentaries. There's talk of a Trump magazine. The second season of The Apprentice will air on NBC soon. He's on the cover of the August issue of Esquire, which arrived in my mailbox last week. He's doing commercials. I'd joke about a Trump breakfast cereal or a Trump-edition Lexus, except that I fear those things are just around the corner.

He's one overexposed son of a bitch, but that's not his fault. Trump's "always been a better self-promoter than businessman," somebody really smart once wrote, and he's quick enough to realize that his run won't last forever. His jump-the-shark moment has to be coming soon, and by the time America moves on to its next bizarre infatuation, Trump will have made enough to keep him in ex-wives for the rest of his life. Or until he needs to spring for a new set of hydraulics to keep that painstakingly constructed 'do from looking even more hideous than it currently does.